New Route, Limitations Understood

Last night, I had a great run. Not my longest ever, but a really good run. I did 8 miles and my pace was 9 minutes per mile. I stopped twice: once to pee and once because it's a new route and I got slightly lost and confused. Had I done neither of those things, my time would have been closer to 8:45 per mile, I think. But when you gotta go, you gotta go.

The new route is killer. It's an almost 2-mile loop on a residential street with great visibility. I never ever felt like I was in danger and that's cool.

Here's a map of the route:

The loop is pretty obvious. I run counter-clockwise. All runners run counter clockwise. I don't know why that is. E represents home. I only run that little leg to and from the loop.

I learned pretty definitively that 8 miles is my soft limit for short runs. Let me see if I can explain that.

Good socks are expensive. Cheap socks are cheap. For short runs, I run in cheap socks. But after about 7 miles, the socks hurt my "ring" toes, if you get my meaning. Expensive socks are made of wool and don't hurt at all, but I can only do so much laundry, so I save the good socks for runs greater than about 8 miles.

Next, I run out of fuel at about 8 miles. I can keep going after that, but it's absolutely no fun. I need to pick up some gels to down at about miles 6 and 10 to keep me going.

Mind you, for once I'm not complaining. Oh, I could complain about it, but I now know a legit limit, why it's a limit, and how to get past it. Which sounds like a success to me.

A Pair of Lessons

I took a week off running. I wasn't feeling great and didn't want to get sick. Plus, I just needed some time off running.

I started up last night with the intent of doing a quarter-marathon but only got five miles. Glad I cut it short, not so glad I didn't cut it shorter.

You see, I ran without my knee brace. I thought to myself, "it's not really doing anything. I'll give it a shot without it on a short run." A great idea in theory, I suppose, but in practice, that knee brace does a lot. It keeps my knee straight which keeps my foot and hips straight which keeps my other knee straight which is why my other knee — the one that never has a brace on — hurts this morning.

Well, it doesn't hurt. It aches.

For all that, I had a great pace. I'd have had it down to 8:30/mile had it not been for taking a wrong turn and getting confused and standing there trying to figure it out for however long it was. The trouble was I started running down a street I usually run up. It was familiar but wrong and I couldn't figure it out for the longest time.

Oh, well. It was a good run and I feel basically good this morning. I wont run without my knee brace any more, so that's a good lesson to have learned.

On my last big run, some people were having a party at a house along my run. I talked to them a little bit every nine minutes or so as I ran past. It was a weird little relationship. I ran 10 miles doing laps past their house, they were hideously obese and disgusting and smoking and drinking out of beer bongs. But they also approved of what I was doing. They filled my water bottle for me once and cheered for me every time I went past.

It's weird how encouraging cheering is, even when it's coming from people you solidly disapprove of. Maybe it's because I value my running and when somebody else values my running — even if they don't value running for themselves — it feels good when they let me know.

My goal for this week is another 6-mile, quarter-marathon run and a 13-mile, half-marathon run. I need to go to the bike shop to get some gels first.

I Thought I Learned How to Snack in Kindergarten

My last big run was supposed to be 11 miles, but I only had 10 in me. Why? Because 10 miles is a damn lot of miles, that's why. And there's this nutrition issue.

You see, I told my iPod that I'm 5-foot-10 and 155 pounds. A while back, I ran 7 miles and my iPod told me I burnt 817 calories. By way of comparison, a Dunkin Donuts Coffee Coolatta is 904 calories.

The point is by the time I'd finished 10 miles, I was out of fuel. Hell, by 8 miles I was out of fuel. Mile 8 was hard, mile 9 was miserable and mile 10 was more harm than good.

So what am I going to do when I run 26.2 miles?

Well, eat, that's what. And I need to practice doing it now. So I ordered one of these:

Camelbak Quick Grip, $19

It's called a Camelbak Quick Grip. The backpack thing, I mean. the water bottle is a water bottle, and I already run with one of those. I guess I sort of figure that the water bottle backpack has enough room to store some raisins or orange slices or gels or something. I can have a quick bite around mile 6 and have the fuel I need to get to mile 10 when I can have some more.

I dunno. Maybe I'm being stupid. Maybe what I need is a little lunchbox I can leave on my route with a little letter that says, "please don't steal my running food. If this box is gone when I get back, I'll kick your ass."

Problem is then I have to run a mile with a box, so I dunno.

Maybe I need one of these instead. It just seems so effing big.

Camelbak Delanay, $39.

It's a belt pack. I don't know how I feel about that. It's horribly nerdy, but it's got storage for what I need on the big runs. Is it the tool I need? Is it stupid? Does anybody have one I can try out? Do they have a rental I can try for $1 a day? Am I missing an easy and obvious idea that has nothing to do with this stuff? Help!

Ok, that's enough from me. I ran 10 miles and also ran out of fuel. I'm an idiot and need to fix it and don't know how and don't really want to spent a ton of money doing it.

In my next post, I'll write about the drunkards who cheered for me on my 10-mile run. That was great.

Progress

Since I last wrote for this blog, I've made some big changes. I went to weight lifting class and now know how to get what I want out of lifting weights. I began drinking a proteine powder after lifting weights and after running. And I've had a 9-mile run.

What's neat about the proteine powder is that it makes me feel far less torn up after a workout or run than I've felt in times past. Usually after a big run, I fall splat on my face once I get home and die. Now I mix some milk into my powder, drink it down, and begin to feel better — healthy, even — almost immediately.

I also credit it with why I feel so good the next day. After my 9-miler earlier this week, I was kind of jelly-legs the next day, but not sore and crappy. It was great to feel great! Huzzah!

Shortly before writing this piece, I went for a 6-mile run — or, as I like to call it, a quarter-marathon. It was a great one and I felt strong and capable the whole time. My fifth lap in particular was great. I motored up that hill. I even managed a decent sprint for the last 400 meters.

My wife says I smelled bad after the run, but I'm not sure I believe her. How can something that feels so good make you smell bad? It just doesn't stand to reason. I suspect she was mistaken on this subject. I still love her, though. You can't be right all the time.

I wish I had more to write about. I keep lifting weights, running, and riding my bike. It keeps being good. Nobody's called the cops on me, I haven't tripped and cut my knees. My iPod keeps working and Stevie keeps telling me what a good job I do. There's just nothing in my way, so I'll keep going.

Seriously, is anybody inspired yet to get up off their ass and do something impossible like run a marathon? How about a half? How about a 5k? It can't just be Blaine and I, can it?